Throughout the summer, local residents are gathering and they’re bringing their family’s board game traditions with them.
Pandemonium Books and Games in Central Square hosts tournaments for collectible card games. Cambridge Public Library also has a game night featuring a variety of games like Settlers of Catan and Wingspan.
But where are the traditional board games that used to happen naturally in public squares? You can still find chess enthusiasts of all ages, and sometimes even grandmasters, in Harvard Square. But beyond that scene, Cambridge Day scouted out several recurring neighborhood meetups that feature backgammon, mahjong, and cribbage across Somerville and Cambridge.
Backgammon is for life
If there’s one thing you need to understand about backgammon night at Mamaleh’s, it’s this: it’s not for the community.
The Thursday night meetup outside the Jewish deli in Kendall Square “was purely selfish,” admits organizer Alon Munzer. “The whole reason I did it is because I wanted to play backgammon. I wanted to hang out, have a drink, and play.”
Munzer launched Mamaleh’s with his business partners 10 years ago, but his obsession with backgammon stretches much longer than that. His mother played with him in the womb, he said. He’s been playing for so long he doesn’t remember learning the rules.
Backgammon isn’t complicated – you’re trying to move all your checkers off the board and all you need to do is roll dice and count. But in this simplicity lies its appeal.
When Munzer moved to Boston for college 30 years ago, he would go to Harvard Square where for decades, people have gathered to play chess. Back then, there was also a bit of a backgammon scene, run by “a bunch of old Middle Eastern men who played very aggressively.”
These men knew the game so well that whenever it was Munzer’s turn to roll, they knew the best move as soon as the dice landed.
“Obvious move, obvious move,” they’d say over his shoulder.
From these men, Munzer cultivated toughness, but also inspiration. Fast forward to 2018, when Munzer was two years in the deli business, he made t-shirts with “Official Mamaleh’s Backgammon Club” printed on the back. Was there a club then? No, but there would be one day.
When diners reemerged from COVID lockdowns in 2022, Munzer began hosting backgammon nights at Mamaleh’s location in Brookline. But because the restaurant sits on a hill, sometimes the dice would go tumbling off the board.
So, Mameleh’s Cambridge location became the club’s new home.
Now, during the summer months, you can catch players on Thursday evenings on the deli’s patio in Kendall Square.
It’s important to play outdoors, Munzer said. If he was inside, he’d be paying attention to the business, which again, is not the point of his weekly gatherings. Not everything he does needs to scale up. On Thursday nights, Munzer either wants to play or coach others. Like he said, his intentions are purely selfish.
In Somerville, a backgammon night has also cropped up at Aeronaut Brewing, where Ben Wheeler has hosted a meetup every six weeks or so.
Wheeler’s stepsister first taught him how to play and he developed a love for the game at community tables in New York. Once in Cambridge for grad school, he couldn’t find a backgammon gathering that fit his schedule, so he threw up a date on a Meetup page, not knowing if anyone he knew would come.
The first night at Aeronaut, in 2022, brought out 10 people. Since then, it’s grown roughly threefold. And now, Wheeler is no longer a grad student but a Somerville city councillor. He entered office in 2026.
Hosting a backgammon night is not all that different from being a politician, said Wheeler, who also works in education technology.
“It’s not that [politicians] are doing some brilliant thing; it’s more that they’re helping facilitate connections.”
At Aeronaut, Wheeler said backgammon draws people whose families hail from countries like Turkey, Ukraine, Israel or Egypt, where the game is popular.
Regardless of familiarity, Wheeler thinks backgammon is for everyone because anything can happen throughout the game. Luck plays a prominent factor, so experienced players are not guaranteed a win, which is different from games like chess.
“It doesn’t require you to crunch your brain at every turn. It lends itself to conversation, to eating and drinking. It rewards a third person looking over your shoulder saying ‘Why’d you do that? Don’t you want to go over there?’”
Because of Wheeler’s position in the city, sometimes conversation will drift towards politics, but it doesn’t happen as often as you might expect, he said.
He joked that he wants backgammon night to become his unofficial office hours as a sitting councillor, but that it won’t happen anytime soon.
“I keep on inviting people in the politics world in Somerville, but none of them have ever come,” he said.
Neither Munzer nor Wheeler charge for their backgammon events. Munzer has Mamaleh’s Instagram and a Google group to communicate with players while Wheeler operates a Meetup page. It’s designed to be simple and to reduce barriers for new players.
“I’ve come across few games that have [this] kind of longevity with kids and families that [is] so easy to teach,” said Doug Perrin, a Cambridge backgammon player who joined the meetup at Mamaleh’s for the first time this summer.
“People will probably not be playing Exploding Kittens for life,” he said. ““People will be playing backgammon for life.”
In Hong Kong mahjong, everything is ‘family style’
You might hear a mahjong game before you see it. The edges of tiles tapping together is the stuff of ASMR dreams – ideal for luring players out of the hellscape of social media and back into real life.
“I feel like my attention span with TikTok is, like, eight seconds. It’s so nice to touch something,” Anna Shay Wasden, who plays mahjong at Aeronaut Brewing Company on the first Wednesday of every month.
“I like to hear the click-click of tiles,” she said, knocking a few together in her hands.
The group, called Wednesday Tile Club, is organized by Somerville residents Nicole Yang and Thomas Oide.
Yang, who moved here in 2017, first learned how to play mahjong when she visited China with her family at age 16.
She fell in love with the game, but back in the U.S., she couldn’t find a community around it beyond her home in Connecticut. Mahjong requires four people to play, which can be a barrier if you don’t have an existing group to join.
Yang first heard about Aeronaut’s newly formed Tile Club through a friend last summer. Although there were a few Riichi and American mahjong gatherings in the Boston area, there weren’t any for Hong Kong mahjong, which Yang plays.
She and Oide, who are a couple, came to the club’s second gathering. They became the events’ lead organizers late last year. They pair beginners with more seasoned players to ensure new players learn the ropes.
“Optically, it’s a very intimidating game, said Oide. “But as long as you have someone who knows what they’re doing and knows how to teach the game, it’s not as intimidating as you might think.”
Part of the fun of Hong Kong mahjong is its cultural component.
Mahjong is a “family-based game,” said Yang. Other games, you might learn from reading instructions, but mahjong has a lot of house rules. Superstitions, even, that can inflect game play with personal flair.
One player shared with Yang her family’s rule of not washing your hands during a game because it washes away all the good luck.
Another player guards their tiles after they are dealt, to avoid catching bad luck from someone else.
There’s a lore attached to each family’s mahjong style that can be fun to learn, said Yang. And after seating strangers together, she said she enjoys watching friendships form.
“We’ve seen people exchange numbers, return and sit with the same people they played with last time.”
“I could probably play Mahjong online all day, but this is so different,” said Felicity Inthisone, a Somerville resident who attends. “I’ve been really trying to stay away from my phone and connect with people in real life.”
The meetups also give Inthisone an opportunity to connect with her Laotian family who lives in Texas.
“My entire family plays back home. My aunt has a set. They’re showing their hands and I … really want to know what’s happening.”
To keep from killing your brothers, play cribbage
When Charlie Redd’s grandparents built and furnished a lake house in the Adirondacks, they didn’t include a TV.
So Redd, who now lives in Somerville, and his three brothers would play board games to pass the time – cribbage, especially. The card game tempered what might have been a more embattled childhood.
“We’re four boys. We could easily start playing and all of a sudden like, break out knives and kill each other,” he said. “Ever play Life with your siblings? S**t can get real real quick. But cribbage … who wins? Whatever. You talk some s**t and move past it.”
As Redd grew up to become a chef and restaurateur, cribbage became the backdrop for many more of his relationships.
Redd would play with his wife, and then his children. Once, while on vacation in Vermont, his family happened upon a cribbage night at the Three Penny Taproom in Montpelier.
“It was incredible,” said Redd, who knew he wanted to steal the idea. “There was literally a 70-year-old man with a beard to his knees playing a woman with tats up and down her arms. Everyone was having a great time.”
When he opened Dragon Pizza in 2018, he hoped to introduce the concept of a cribbage night, but it wasn’t until the restaurant expanded into the space next door that the idea took shape. The dim bar and games room became known as the “Dragon’s Lair” and now sees everything from table shuffleboard to Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons to, yes, cribbage.
Callie Lau, a 13-year-old who lives in Cambridge, began attending cribbage nights over a year ago with her mom. She said it’s not super complicated. There’s a little bit of luck, a little bit of strategy.
“Once you learn it, it kind of sticks with you,” she said.
Although she plays online occasionally, just clicking against the computer is “not very interesting.”
Playing with others at Dragon Pizza, “you have a purpose,” she said. “You’re playing someone else, and you’re learning about them.”
At Dragon Pizza, cribbage players compete monthly for a crown and prizes that Redd contributes. It’s all about building something cool, he said. And if you create community along the way? Well, that’s great, too.
“In hard times, games really get you through,” Redd said. “It’s better than doomscrolling, sitting around drinking, and watching another TV series.”
“Interacting with your brain, reminding yourself that you’re smart, that you’re a person … games bring all of those things.”
Backgammon nights
Mamaleh’s – every Thursday, weather permitting, in Kendall Square from 6-8 p.m.
Aeronaut – about every six weeks, 6:30-9 p.m.
Mahjong nights
Cafe Zing – once a month, usually on a Wednesday
Aeronaut – first Wednesday of the month, 6-9 p.m., $12.50 entry
Cribbage nights
Dragon Pizza – last Tuesday of the month, 6 p.m.
Chess nights
Cafe Zing – Twice a month, usually on a Wednesday
Harvard Square – daily, in front of Smith Campus Center
A stronger
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